The Christian Merchandising Machine - Is it Too Much?

Being a relatively new Christian, I have been completely amazed at the amount of merchandising associated with our faith. Going into a modern Christian bookstore is like walking into Wal-Mart. There are books, bibles, magazines, clothing, bookmarks, toys, artwork, journals and anything else you can possibly imagine.

As a kid growing up in a family that didn't go to church, I figured Christian merchandise consisted of bibles and...bibles. It didn't occur to me that there were stores devoted to Christian items. In fact, I didn't even realize there were other translations of the bible than the King James. I was way out of the loop in terms of Christian culture.

Jump ahead to 2000 and I had recently become a follower of Jesus Christ and took my first field-trip to a Christian bookstore. I was shocked to say the least. I was just planning to maybe pick up a nice new bible or something. Little did I know the choices I would be seeing there that Friday night. It was overwhelming.

The specialization is astounding, particularly among the bibles themselves. First you have to navigate all the different translations and paraphrases. I had no idea they existed. I was familiar with the King James version and had heard of a few of the others, but I had no idea there were so many. Once you choose a KJV, NIV, NLT, CEV, NRSV, NIRV, Message or some other version, you have to further decide what edition you have to have. You can always just choose a plain old bible I suppose, but there are so many more "improved" editions to choose from. You can choose a Study bible, a Life Application Study Bible, A Women's Devotional Bible, a Men's Devotional Bible, a Couple's Devotional Bible, a Student Bible, a New Believers' Bible, a Women of Faith Bible, a Recovery Bible, a Bible-in-One-Year Bible...and the list goes on for miles.